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Eonon G2110 Android Car Stereo Unboxing - I Review Crap!

At some point in the indeterminate future (the government hasn’t actually put an exact date on it yet) the good old faithful analogue radio signal is going to be switched off – which means if you own a car without a DAB receiver for Car DVD, there’s a danger you might have to actually start talking to your passengers unless you do something about the Android car stereo.

Some may relish the idea of ripping out their current in-car stereo and fitting a fancy aftermarket unit with a digital radio receiver included. But if you’d prefer to maintain the OEM look or – like me – you already have a fancy (ish) aftermarket unit and don’t really want to replace it, the answer could be an add-on adaptor. Such as this, the £129.99 Pure Highway 400 – which is rather cunningly designed to be a plug-and-play, user-installed solution that includes a number of other useful features.

How easy is it to fit?

Pretty easy. The Highway 400 set-up consists of a receiver that sticks to the windscreen, which you simply plug into a 12v socket using the included power adaptor, and a wireless control box with screen powered by two AAA batteries (included), supposedly good for a year’s use at a time.

It’s up to you how neat a job you do of the wires for the car DVD player – I removed the A-pillar trim and ran them down behind that. Doing this made it straightforward to attach the optional (it’s also included but only recommended that you use it) ‘magnetic grounding tail’ to the metal windscreen surround, with a view to ensuring the best possible signal.

A basic stick-on digital aerial also attaches to the receiver, and glues itself to the windscreen glass, while the included sticky clips help with cable management. Take your time, because all these stick-on items won’t be easy to reposition or remove.

There’s also a sticky-backed bracket for the wireless controller, but for me it made sense to just leave this tucked out of sight in the centre console – I’ll mostly just be switching between 6Music and Radio 4 anyway. You can store 20 presets, both DAB and FM.

How does the DAB get to the android car gps?

You can either plug the receiver into an aux-in socket via the included attachment or it can broadcast to an unused FM frequency like those iPod adaptors from days of yore. I chose the former, ’cause I heard it was warmer (the signal, I mean, is stronger) – but since my existing Alpine head unit has the aux-in on the back of car dvd, I had to spend a few extra minutes pulling this out to attach it.

Once all wired up, you simply switch on the car, fire up your existing car dvd, select aux-in as the source, switch on the Pure Highway controller, follow the start-up prompts and choose your radio station from the display. Bingo – it works straight away, and my 25-year-old car starts playing 6Music for the first time.

What else does the Pure Highway 400 do?

Being a clever little gadget, you can also sync it to your phone by Bluetooth. While the 400 doesn’t do phone calls (there is a Highway 600 that can), it does do music streaming – either from what’s already stored on your phone or via Spotify. Download the Pure ‘Go’ app, and you can even tag songs as you hear them for future reference – though after the first 12 months you’ll need to pay an annual subscription fee for the privilege.

So far so good – how’s the reception?

Good in high strength signal areas, but it tends to become a little patchy outside of densely populated areas. While this is true of DAB in general, compared to the OEM-fitted DAB systems that come in most of the modern Android car stereo we test at CAR, the Pure drops out much more frequently, and for longer periods of time.

Being careful with how you position the receiver can help with this – when I first installed it I failed to heed the instruction’s advice to place it at least 4cm from the metal of the windscreen surround. Moving it further way (the sticky pad on the back of the receiver was reusable, but the aerial had to be discarded – luckily there was a spare in the box) improved reception on my A14 commute, but didn’t clear up the silence elsewhere.

This is largely due to the aerial, I suspect – stick-on DAB aerials have a patchy reputation, and this isn’t a particularly large one – but you may also have better luck if your aux-in socket isn’t buried within the dashboard, surrounded by loads of other electrical wires. Sadly it does not appear that there’s any way to use a different aerial due to the bespoke nature of the Pure receiver’s socket.

Verdict

The Pure Highway 400 is a very neatly designed bit of kit, and it lives up to the company’s claims of easy installation – you can have it up and running in a matter of minutes. The wireless controller is also intuitive and easy to use, and the whole package offers an elegant solution to acquiring a DAB signal.

Recently, I bought a new SUV. Weeks later I am still learning to use it. It is no secret that the electronic content of cars and trucks has increased dramatically over the years, like car dvd. The electronics has added new safety and convenience features, but it has also increased driving distraction and steepened the learning curve. I am both loving and hating the electronic content of my new vehicle and enduring the frustration of learning how it works and how to use it. But I’m getting there.

I hadn’t bought a new car in six years. In that time, lots of new electronic goodies have become standard. In fact, younger buyers are expecting the electronics to just be there. What is becoming clear to me is that the new electronic features are useful and helpful but they do introduce a complexity that did not exist before. Take the radio as an example. In older cars, to hear a local AM station for traffic news, you turned the radio on, selected AM and tuned to the station. In my new car, it takes four touchscreen menu selections and knowledge of a new set of icons to get to a station. Tuning is additional with the touchscreen or a knob. It is possible to set up a Favorites station to eliminate the tuning step. Almost every other function is like that in GM navigation.

Connected car

Image courtesy of Thinkstock

Another example is the headlights. In my older cars, the headlights had a single switch to turn on the headlights and/or parking/running lights. In my new vehicle there are multiple rotary switches on a stalk. The headlight switch has five positions—one for off, and the others for controlling the high beams either manually or automatically. Another position gives AUTO control where the car determines when to turn the lights on or off. Yet another switch turns the fog lights off or on. I had to read the manual to figure all of this out. The headlights are all LED and super-bright. They also rotate to the right or left when you are turning to better light the way into the turn (nice on a dark road). There are interesting daylight running lights, too in car dvd player.

Then there is all of the wireless. The remote keyless entry uses an RF link to open and lock the doors. The key fob also links wirelessly to an internal ignition switch transceiver that enables the start/stop button. Next are the Bluetooth connections for hands-free cell phone use and connecting the music on your phone to the Android car stereo system. And don’t forget the wireless tire pressure sensors and monitor. My vehicle also has three 315-MHz ISM band transmitters to use for remote control of garage doors, gates, and other entrances. You first have to program each transmitter with the garage door or gate remote unit. It works quite well.

The entertainment system may be the most complex I have ever encountered. It uses a 7-in. color touchscreen and a big control knob on the shifter console. This arrangement seems to be popular in many other vehicles, as well. There are lots of new icons to learn and menus and sub-menus galore. The touchscreen is disabled while you are driving to prevent distraction, in which case you resort to the control knob to make menu selections. Radio selections include AM, FM, HD, and SiriusXM satellite with its 184 channels in car dvd player. (HD is the U.S. digital system that simultaneously rebroadcasts AM or FM content digitally via an RF overlay of OFDM on the same frequency.)

In addition, I can select the car dvd or Bluetooth music from whatever source. Pandora and aha are also available. It has taken me several playing-around sessions to figure all this out. I still don't like to do it while driving. I haven't tried out the GPS navigation system yet, but there is another learning session or two. All of this would be much easier to use if the voice response system would recognize my voice. Maybe I am speaking a foreign language.

As for the safety features, the new car has multiple radars and lasers and various sensors for blind spot, lane departure, and back-up warning notifications. There is also automatic rear braking and self-adjusting cruise control with auto braking. The all-wheel-drive system has traction control. I have yet to experience all this stuff but the backup camera is great.

I think all the new electronic features are okay, but they are an example of how complex things have become. Designers need to be careful to not over-design for Android car stereo. Furthermore, designers should employ consumer focus groups to use what they designed. Make it easier, not harder to use. I know you embedded programmers are having fun with this as you ponder what else to pile on.

Anyway, I am still learning. I have yet to figure out how to set the dashboard clock and car dvd clock, but I am sure my 2-in. thick, 400+ page user’s manual can show me how in a dozen easy steps.

ford navigation  Automotive companies have been reluctant to hand over control of the in-car experience to software makers such as Apple and Google for fear of losing a key point of competitive differentiation.ford navigation

However, Ford's adoption of CarPlay and Android Auto has left Toyota as the main holdout against Apple and Google's encroachment.

The two smartphone platform leaders have in recent years begun to build simpler ways to connect their devices to cars. CarPlay and Android Auto both provide features such as voice control, driving directions and music in a way that their developers said is safer and easier to use than the interfaces created by car makers           ford navigation

chevy navigation  Apple’s CarPlay will be used by more than 40 auto brands to integrate the iPhone into the car’s telematics system for navigation, music playback and phone calls. Google’s Android Auto is available in models from at least 17 car brands, including Chevrolet, Honda, Hyundai and Mercedes-Benz, and is adding the traffic program Waze to its navigation offerings.

Ma, dressed in a gray tee-shirt and chinos, hopped into a white SAIC Roewe RX5 with his counterpart at SAIC Motor. Earlier, he thanked SAIC Chairman Chen Hong for offering the SUV at a cheap price.  chevy navigation

SAIC, China’s largest automaker, started a 1 billion yuan fund with Alibaba in March 2015 to develop a connected car. The state-owned company has joint ventures with China’s top-selling global carmakers Volkswagen AG and General Motors Co. ford sat nav

“Alibaba has wide-ranging Internet-based services and YunOS could be a starting point for their cooperation, especially due to the fact that lots of Google services are blocked in China,” said Michael Liu, an analyst at IHS Automotive in Shanghai. “Foreign brands are not likely to use the Alibaba system at least in the next several years.”ford sat nav